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To put it simply,David Lynch’sfinal film,Inland Empire, is one of the most terrifying films you will ever see. The late master’s final feature film occupies a fascinating place in his already fascinating filmography, beingarguably the most underrated for the feats it achieves across its sprawling three-hour nightmare. There is nothing likeInland Empire,and it takes everything that makes his previous films so unsettling and cranks them up to levels no director has reached for nearly 20 years since. Lynch was truly a master of ambiguity, somehow making it feel wholly necessary that it goes unexplained.
As his most underrated piece,Inland Empireis less of a plot-driven story as it is a series of haunting moments filmed to look like an intangible dream. It lingers in the subconscious well after watching. Lynch didn’t feel the need to answer anything, andInland Empireis the best example of this.Lynch abandons any form of reason or sense, leaving the viewer to attempt to connect the pieces only for the sake of their own peace of mind.
Amazingly,Lynch never made another feature film again, but in a perverse, Lynchian way, it’s the perfect note to end on for one of the great visionaries of our time. What makesInland Empireso good? Why is it an underrated masterpiece? How does it achieve such nightmarish levels? Here’s what you need to know.
‘Inland Empire’ Evokes a Feeling of Pure Dread
Inland Empire
Movies that try to evoke feelings of anxiety or fear rarely fully achieve it as they typically follow a straightforward plot.David Lynch doesn’t care about that, fromEraserheadall the way toInland Empire. It is so good at being scary because it effortlessly taps into a mode of the unknown, like a dream where things are happening, but you don’t know why. Some things make you realize this isn’t reality, but that doesn’t break it. It’s a looked-over epilogue to Lynch’s work, probably one of his least accessible and hardest to define.
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Inland Empirealso doesn’t move like any of Lynch’s other movies. In something likeLost HighwayorMulholland Drive, Lynch forces the viewer to sit in the fantasy he has created, but inInland Empire, he meanders from place to place.Where Patricia Arquette has a decent amount of timewith Bill Pullman and then with her fantasy version of him in two distinct halves,Inland Empirefeatures a massive cast that only shows up in one scene and is never seen again. It’s the complete denial of anything resembling a narrative that makesInland Empireso upsetting.
Laura Dern Gives Everything in ‘Inland Empire’
Lynch’s masterwork wouldn’t work withouta committed Laura Dern performance. It’s so terrifying because she treats everything seriously, even when the movie gets utterly nonsensical in a few key moments.The film follows Dern as she delves deeper into the surreal nightmare whilst she has an affair with her co-star on a movie set. Very little information is given about any of the characters, and in true Lynch fashion, it doesn’t even really matter that much. It isn’t needed.
Lynch has always been a master of ambiguous tones, and his final effort is one of his most consistently non-consistent movies. It’s easy to see whyInland Empiremight be too much for people. Without anything to latch onto, it can make for a cold experience. But that’s the point; it’s a feeling of detachment yet subtly poking holes in the world that makes it work so well. Even something as bizarre asEraserheadhad a few brief moments of respite.David Lynch’s style has evolved inInland Empireto such an extent that he doesn’t care about conventions anymore, which is what made him such a brilliant filmmaker.
How Does David Lynch Achieve the Feeling of ‘Inland Empire’?
The magic ofInland Empireis trulyfound in Lynch’s direction, with lots of abrasive hand-held shots and close-up reactions. The deliberately poor visual quality of the picture also adds to the effect of realism within the surreal nature of the ‘plot.‘The fuzzy sound quality and the cold way he shifts from scene to scene makeInland Empireone of Lynch’s most underappreciated movies. It doesn’t get the same treatment asBlue VelvetofMulholland Drive,two similarly non-traditional movies that aren’t nearly as ambiguous as this one. Lynch doesn’t directly spell out what’s happening, but the metaphors are very visual and not that hard to decipher.
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Inland Empiredoesn’t externalize its terror in metaphor. It burrows its way deep into your subconscious, which takes its time to get weirder and weirder. It’s his longest movie, and it takes a lot to sit in a state of such unease for three hours. Lynch gives nothing to us and expects everything in return, but this doesn’t feel like an unfair trade-off. Not only does Lynch bury it in our brains, but he knows that the biggest weapon he has is a lack of information, not necessarily how scary things can get on the screen.
Cinema has lost one of its masters with the passing of David Lynch. Whilst few of his movies are traditional or accessible,Inland Empireoccupies a category of its own. It’s less of a movie than an abstract piece of art. Lynch pushes the boundaries of cinematic terror without massive jump scares. He does it slowly, forcing us into a nightmare that lets us know we are dreaming without any promise of waking up. It is arguably the film to watch to understandLynch’s singular attitude to moviesand remains a perverse, overlooked conclusion to his insurmountable filmography.Inland Empireis available to stream onMaxand theCriterion Channel.
